By now we’re all familiar with the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare. ObamaCare poses some potentially serious concerns for employers, who will now shoulder much more responsibility for employee benefits programs. If your company employs at least 50 fulltime workers, the following advice should be considered:
When will the ACA regulations be enforced?
January 1, 2014 is the start date. Large employers that don’t offer employees affordable, minimum essential coverage will face significant penalties. Your company should start preparing for these changes now.
Which employers should take notice?
A business is considered a large employer if it staffs at least 50 fulltime workers.
What happens to employers who ignore ACA guidelines?
Large employers that don’t provide affordable health coverage will be fined. The annual penalty will be $2,000 per fulltime employee in excess of 30 workers. For example, if an employer has 53 fulltime employees and they do not offer essential coverage, the penalty would be $46,000 (23 × $2,000) per year. Not exactly something to sneeze at.
Which employees will qualify?
This is where things get tricky. For ACA compliance, a fulltime employee is an individual who works 130 hours or more per month. Because the IRS recognizes that month-to-month determinations could become burdensome on employers and could be disruptive to employees, they have proposed a “safe harbor” to measure if an employee is “fulltime”. This safe harbor will allow employers to establish a Standard Measurement Period in which they will determine if an employee has worked an average of 130 hours per month, then be allowed to “lock employees out” if they don’t meet the minimum during this period.
Is there an easier way to track qualifying employees?
Yes—with better timekeeping. Now more than ever, your company needs an accurate, reliable clocking system. Web-based timekeeping is a simple and affordable solution to ensure compliance with The Affordable Care Act and to avoid huge fines.
But better timekeeping makes good business sense on its own, too.
How can my company improve its timekeeping system?
Your timekeeping solution should be simple to set up, and offer easy daily management of employee timecards. Look for systems with a variety of data collection options—including fingerprint scan, web, phone, pin/badge swipe, or proximity badge.
Besides meeting ACA guidelines, what are the advantages of improved timekeeping?
- Reduced labor costs through higher efficiency and more accurately tracked employee hours.
- Increased productivity by eliminating payment for late arrivals and early departures.
- Easy reporting for data analysis to help you comply with the ACA provisions.
- Easily imports to payroll.
- Prevention of employee time theft by eliminating “buddy punching.”
- Easy management of data from any online workstation.
- Simple hardware set up.
